It may be that, in the beginning, there was intimation of the end: certainly one point connected to another, even by the crooked line of time, share an intimacy as close as any two lovers, perhaps closer. It may be that, when I started out, I had a plan, and that plan imagined an associated arrival.

But while there are some – maybe there are many? – who consciously describe a future in their minds, to then steadfastly walk in its direction, tinkering with the facts as they stray (until, with a flashing grin of satisfaction, and the pride of the accomplished, they arrive where they revisedly said they were going, often at a distance of years and miles from their intended target), I am not one of them. I arrive as errantly as any other, but rarely hold intention consciously, either trusting the currents of the world to sweep what is valuable in my path, or mistrusting my own dim vision to light up enough of that forward way, to set a heading far into it.

“Switch it off!”

“What?” (Not ‘what do I switch off’; rather: ‘what are you talking about’.)

“Shhh!” All five fingers of the right hand spread wide, the first touching the lips, the hand a stop sign, the fingers stretched rigid, the hand surprised, the fingers an echo of surprise. Meanwhile, with the left, she reached over and unplugged the radio.

“What th…”

“SH!”

As there was no wind, there was no sound. It was night. The stovetop light from the kitchen was a warm glow that filtered onto the porch, where they sat side by side, on the top step. She was looking for something in the darkness, but couldn’t see. She was listening: her face said “What?”

They leaned into each other as the warming first-light leaned against their window, leaned into their room, over the bed, let its weight drape gently on their limbs, whispering Good Things that neither would remember when they woke.

But maybe it touched them dreaming: they stretched, and stretching took deep draughts of air into their lungs, as though Good Things had just begun.

“I forgot just now that winter…” “I was running in fields with ribbons in my hair…” “So good to fall asleep beside you…” “So good to wake beside you…”

Several years ago I was “improving” my photo collection, which had become a wobbling tower of Kodachrome, balanced precariously and in no particular order in a hidden corner of my closet. Every time I saw it, I felt a vague intolerance; and each time I saw it, I felt that intolerance grow, until finally the intolerance was itself intolerable, and I furiously shoveled the concealing junk out of the way, and hooked those boxes and stacks out into the middle of my bedroom floor.

One pillar was just within reach. Stretching her hand, the tips of her fingers ran over the smooth and the rough of the mosaic surface, each square inch of glazed ceramic a work of art in itself, each line of mortar its frame. – If I stood here a month I might see them all, she thought. As though walking the Louvre without walking.

She glanced down the long chamber. The sun was falling, and the far end of the hall was already dark, in the expanse the other columns were like trees, somehow solemn (was that her feeling, written into the dusk?), lifting a painted canopy overhead, lifting history overhead, roots buried in centuries of shuffling feet, branches hidden in an incense haze.

I turned to face the evening       she was there her arms a circle       cool November: mist the light, a fallen curtain       and her hair a silken flicker turned        to mask her face all given, all received       in evening’s arms we fell, we turned the shawl       November’s mist to circled warmth       the lightest curtain furled til darkness fell       on everything, and gave November back to us       returned our names a circle cannot end       November can

Rue - Mark Schultz

O coração baía aberto ao maré as águas vêm as águas vão prá onde eu não sei

Chegam de tempestade ao suspiro elas vão escrevem nomes na areia que as ondas apagarão

… instrumental

Correnteza agridoce pôs tesouros à beira-mar que beleza me traz sorriso despedida me faz chorar

Correnteza agridoce faz tesouros aterrisar que beleza ao alcance dos olhos mas nas mãos é que nem luar

Beleza ao alcance dos olhos desagua das mãos que nem luar

Lonny was the product of big energy and tiny town, where the limitations imposed by three square blocks of homes – an Alcatraz adrift on an ocean of unswimmable wheat – fueled the kind of incendiary pressure that could only come out wrong. Even back then, when I was eight and Lonny was nine, his combustion resulted in trouble; so years later, when I heard that he was in the pen for grand theft auto and some litany of other offenses, it was disappointingly no surprise: the wide world never succeeded in changing Lonny’s first impressions, nor would he be able to see it as anything but an endless, confining small town. A twitch in his heart was too large for his skin, a cruel itch, an irritation for which he found no balm. Maybe he didn’t look hard enough. Maybe he took off in the wrong direction, followed the wrong leader, and never got righted.

The inuksuit born of the weight in our hands as stone after stone they choose to stand their lives take form in the foundry of the heart they rise and arise on the bank of the fjord to wait in the wind for the one who returns they speak without speaking but when? but when? lighthouse without light that shines on the bay poem without words unwritten by hand sentinel to a moment that refuses death the spirit of the stone leans toward the south the spirit of my stone will not close its eyes as some leave their hearts and new stones arise our village of inuksuit grows and subsides they reach toward the sun and they bow to the tide.	Inuksuit sont nés du poids dans les mains pierre en pierre ils choisissent de se lever leurs vies en formant dans la fonderie d’un coeur ils se lèvent et se réveillent à la rive du fjord à attendre dans le vent pour lequel qui revient ils parlent sans parler -- mais lorsque? -- lorsque? un phare sans lumière que illumine la baie poème sans mots pas écrit à main sentinelle d’un moment que refuse de mourrir l’esprit de la pierre penche vers le sur l’esprit de ma pierre ne ferme pas ses yeux comme quelque-uns lèguent ses coeurs et pierres nouvelles se lèvent notre village de inuksuit s’agrande et diminue ils atteignent au soleil et s’inclinent aux marées.

Some inuksuit were used by those hunting caribous, when the caribous were coming the young ones were fed milk not to make noise. The land without trees was called The Place for Feeding by the elders.

Many inuksuit together are called nalluni. We placed nalluni where we would want the caribous to swim before they reach the end of the lake or reach the other side.

Almost all the land had inuksuit; all of them were useful. Some inuksuit were on the way where caribou herds were walking, beside lakes or at the end of big lakes.

When they start to swim, we will go to them by kayak. Before they reach the shore, they will be hunted with harpoon (kapuutinut) This was the way to get many caribous. In the summer the skin and the fur were good and used for clothes. The meat was buried underground, that way it would be the food for the winter, it was like that in the past.

Some inuksuit were there for people not to get lost when they were moving around; for example, inuksuit were followed to go to a lake or anywhere.

On lakes where there are fish, there are rocks who point to the lake. The two rocks are on top of the flat rock point to the fishing whole. We should try to fish where it is pointing. But we don’t even notice it because we don’t know what our ancestors did. Back then they built these pointers to a lake where there is fish. We never worry about them, we just hunt when we are camping.

All the big places have an inuksuit. We use them to recognize where we are. Even to this day, they are used. Inuksuit building was taken seriously by our ancestors, they were built to be used. If there were no inuksuit, many people would get lost, especially in the blizzard. When we see an inuksuit we are thankful and we feel more confident.

If there is a lesson in travel – and I make the gentle distinction here between Travel, where you open yourself to change, and Tourism, where the scenes and faces pass in front of you in cinematic splendor – if there is a lesson in travel, it is that time is much longer than your pockets-full of days, and earth much larger than the bag of bones and sinew you temporarily call home.